


more than words

by abigailcathleen



Category: The Society (TV 2019)
Genre: Fluff, Loneliness, M/M, Queer Themes, Sleepy Cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-30 23:58:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19414180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abigailcathleen/pseuds/abigailcathleen
Summary: "It’s just that… with you I don’t have to, you know, put anythingon,” Grizz says.Sam tugs at the collar of Grizz’s t-shirt and runs his fingertips along the bare skin of his chest, making Grizz shiver. “I like it when you don’t put anything on,” he says, laughing.“Oh mygod,” Grizz says, but he can’t help but laugh along with him. “I’m trying to be serious!”(Or: on being gay and lonely and unable to find the right words.)





	more than words

Grizz never thought he’d have something - _someone_ \- like this. Not really. 

He thought, hoped, _prayed,_ that everything would change once he went to college. No more lies, no more pretending, no more being someone he wasn’t. In his head, he’d wave West Ham goodbye and end up somewhere on the east coast or the midwest, a goddamn fucking _forest,_ even. Anywhere but where he was. Some place where the air was fresher and he could start anew. 

Some nights he’d lay in bed, desperate to escape, and close his eyes, picturing crisp leaves on trees or tall buildings reflecting the sun; an apartment filled with friends having a dinner party; a faceless boy with soft hair who would hold his hand gently, and know him, _really_ know him, for all of who he was and who he wasn’t, and love him just the same. He could sink into that place for hours, getting lost in the ease of it all, the perfection it promised. But then he’d open his eyes and be confronted with the dark of his room, the creaking floorboards as his dad walked down the hall, the football trophies lined up on wooden shelves, and feel like the dread in his stomach and the weight of this place were too heavy for him to ever escape. That his dreams were too good to ever be true. 

That’s until he opened his eyes and saw Sam. 

Not that this was at all what Grizz pictured in his mind. He couldn’t have made up this fucked-up-maybe-another-dimension-but-definitely-not-home place, not even in his worst nightmares. As far as worst nightmares go, being indefinitely stuck in this place with these people that he always intended to leave behind probably takes the cake. He didn't think anything but getting out of this place would make it better. 

But somehow, someway, he and Sam found each other, and if Grizz is being honest, it’s a dream he doesn’t want to wake up from. 

But wake up he does, eyes straining against the light coming through the curtains, on another day he's starting to slowly lose track of since the distinction of weekdays and weekends are basically becoming obsolete. No longer does he have the routine of school and football practice and family dinners to shape his days. Now it's more like _does Sam have the morning off?_ or _am I at the farm today?_ or _does Becca need me to look after Eden this morning?_

But Grizz doesn't mind too much, considering every morning he gets to wake up next to Sam. Sam, who makes being stuck in this fucked up timeline okay, somehow, _great,_ even. Sam, who has soft hair and holds his hand gently and makes Grizz feels like he's not drowning in a crowded room anymore. Sam, who's drooling slightly on his pillow, whose hair is sticking up every which way, who makes Grizz feel a million things, makes him want to scream from the rooftops and write sonnets until dawn. 

The alarm clock on the side table just past Sam’s sleeping figure glows red, 7:32. Neither of them has anywhere to be until the afternoon, so Grizz considers Sam's sleeping face for a minute, trying to breathe evenly and keep still so as not to wake him, but can’t resist the urge to smooth out Sam’s unruly hair, letting his fingers trail down against his soft cheek before pulling away and tucking his hand back under his head.

Sam’s eyes slowly open, then, fluttering against the morning light and adjusting to the room. Grizz can see the moment Sam when fully comes to and registers Grizz’s presence, when his lips turn up into a small smile. 

“Good morning,” Sam whispers. He nuzzles his cheek into his pillow, shuffling closer to Grizz. “Were you watching me sleep?”

Grizz pulls his left hand from under his cheek so he can sign _no,_ shaking his head. When he’s done, he reaches up to cup Sam’s face. “Well,” he says, smirking. “Maybe.”

“Creep,” Sam says, but there’s no bite to it. He leans forward the couple of inches between him and Grizz and presses his lips against Grizz’s softly, slowly, then pulls back to nuzzle his nose against Grizz’s before settling back into his pillow. “Why? Is there something on my face?”

“No, no. You’re good. I was just thinking,” Grizz starts. 

“Always dangerous,” Sam says, before nudging Grizz onto his back so he can lay his head on his chest, nuzzling into the warm cotton of his t-shirt. 

“You dick,” Grizz mutters to himself, but he can’t help laughing because he adores Sam’s quick wit and sarcastic remarks, how Sam’s quips aren’t sharp or hurtful. 

Grizz wraps his arms around Sam, clutching him to his chest so he can prop them up a bit more against the pillows. Once he gets them settled, he taps two fingers against Sam’s cheek so he will rest his chin on his chest and watch him speak. “I was thinking about you,” he starts. “And me. And this place.”

“What about me and you and this place?” Sam asks, and Grizz can feel Sam’s hand fluttering against his chest, forming the signs. 

“It’s just that,” Grizz starts, unable to find the words. He’s so jealous of Sam, who always seems to say or sign the right thing, always manages to be articulate and clever and profound. Grizz can never seem to get what’s in his head to come out of his mouth in any string of sense, instead relying on shoving dog-eared novels or highlighted play scripts or underlined poetry collections into people's hands and saying _here, it’s like this._ For a moment, he considers rolling out of the warmth of Sam’s embrace and scanning through his bookshelf, but decides that’d be silly. “It’s just that, you know, it sucks.”

Sam quirks an eyebrow. “Me,” he touches his chest, “you,” he points at Grizz, “or this place?”

“This place,” Grizz says. “Like, this whole fucked up situation, whatever it is. It sucks. But, it’s like…” His hands are fluttering against Sam’s back, like his physically trying to grab onto the words he cannot find but missing them, like trying desperately to catch a buzzing fly. “God, I don’t know,” he says, shaking his head. He meets Sam’s eyes. “It’s like… Okay. At prom, I told the guys that I never planned to see them again after high school.”

Sam’s eyes widen in surprise before he starts to laugh. “How drunk _were_ you?”

“Not even that drunk, honestly.” 

“Enough to give you the courage to talk to a cute boy.” Sam wiggles his eyebrows. 

Grizz smiles softly at Sam, then sighs. “I just looked at all the people there, this town I always swore to myself I’d escape, and realized that, to some degree, I was stuck. All throughout high school, I thought I just had to make it through, and it would suck, but I’d just get it over with and then not have to worry anymore.”

Grizz’s insides start to feel tight and he doesn’t want to cry, not now, _geez._ Somehow, though, Sam must notice, the way he’s always noticing the things about Grizz that he thinks he needs to hide, and he rubs his hand in small circles on Grizz’s chest. 

“I wouldn’t have to pretend to be someone I wasn’t, or just like, be so fucking scared all the time. It would all just fall away. I just had to get out of West Ham. But there was always this little voice in the back of my head that was like, well, what if you leave and nothing changes? What if this is just how you deserve to feel, you know?” He bites his bottom lip and shifts his eyes down, doesn’t want to see any pity that Sam might be holding in his eyes. “And it all just hit me that like, that’s exactly what getting stuck here felt like. Like that little voice in the back of my head was right all along.” Before Grizz can help it, a tear escapes his eye. In the next instance, Sam is wiping it away with his thumb, then tilting Grizz’s chin up to look at him again. “I don’t know.”

“I get it,” Sam signs, one-handed. “When I realized we were stuck here, I cried in the church to Becca about how now I’d never get the chance to find someone. Just die a perfect Christian virgin.” This time they both laugh, even if Grizz sounds a little shaky, and Grizz just wants to kiss Sam for being able to make him laugh even when he feels like this, so he does, tilting Sam’s head down with both hands on either cheek. 

Sam settles himself further on top of Grizz to kiss him deeper, as if to say _perfect Christian virgin, who?_

Before Grizz gets too lost in the heat, he reluctantly pulls back. “Wait, wait. I’m not done,” he says, breathless.

Sam groans and buries his face into Grizz’s chest. “But it’s so _early_ and I want to _kiss_ you.” He looks up at Grizz and pouts. 

And fuck if that doesn’t make all of Grizz’s insides dance. “I can’t help it that thinking about you makes me want to say a bunch of nice things to you.”

Sam quirks an eyebrow, as if to say, _nice things?_ “Alright, go on.”

Grizz takes another moment to linger on Sam’s face, because, well, sometimes he just can’t help himself, and he wants to take as many long moments as he needs to make all of this come out right. “That night, I didn’t come over to talk to you because I wanted to get into your pants or anything. Although, you know, _bonus_.” Sam laughs, but Grizz can see him start to flush rosy pink, and he ducks his head to nip at Grizz’s neck before looking back up at him. When Grizz looks at Sam this time, he holds his gaze strong, serious. “I wanted to talk to you because I knew you’d understand. Even though I made a complete ass of myself,” Sam shakes his head no. “I mean, I kinda did. But still, I knew you understood. And it was nice to talk with someone who just understood. Does that make sense?”

 _Yes,_ Sam signs. _I understand you._ He punctuates it with a short kiss before curling into Grizz’s side, and Grizz’s arm instinctively curls around his shoulders. It reminds Grizz of the night they first kissed. 

“And we just _got_ each other so instantly. It’s just crazy, don’t you think? And that it’s all happening wherever the fuck we are? I don’t know. I can’t quite tell if God’s punishing me or rewarding me. But regardless I feel, like, _myself_ for the first time.”

Sam looks at him all wide-eyed and sincere and soft, and Grizz just wants him to look at him like that all the damn time. “Because of me?” He signs slowly on Grizz’s chest. 

“Yeah. It’s just that… with you I don’t have to, you know, put anything _on,_ ” Grizz says. 

Sam tugs at the collar of Grizz’s t-shirt and runs his fingertips along the bare skin of his chest, making Grizz shiver. “I like it when you don’t put anything on,” he says, laughing.

“Oh my _god,_ ” Grizz says, but he can’t help but laugh along with him. “I’m trying to be serious!”

“Okay, okay.” Sam removes his hand from under Grizz’s shirt, and if Grizz is being honest, he just wants to say _fuck it_ and go right back to that. Sam moves back to his own pillow, turning on his side, and Grizz follows suit. “No more funny business. Promise.”

Grizz takes a deep breath, tries to conjure up some quote that must be hiding at the back of his mind to summarize all of this nicely, but ultimately fails. _Fuck it,_ he thinks, and just tries to get it all out. “What I’m trying to say is that I’ve always known I’ve felt alone, but I didn’t realize how fucking lonely I was until I met you. But then you came along and I feel like… even though you read my lips and I fumble through signs, somehow you’re the one person who really understands me. You really see me. And I never thought I’d have that. Especially not here. When we got here, I honestly thought everything was just over for me. But now, everything feels so new. It’s like, I think back to how I felt even just last year, and how I feel now, with you and … you just…” Grizz holds Sam’s gaze strong, tries to show him all the big, wild things he feels for him, bigger than anything Dickinson or Shakespeare ever wrote. “You just make me feel free.”

Sam smiles big and sweet and his eyes may be getting wet, but that could just be Grizz’s eyes because he can’t help but cry a little now, because it feels so good to say this, to let what he’s thinking take up space outside of his head instead of forcing it to stay inside, to have someone as amazing as Sam to say this all to. The smile on Sam’s face tells him that he must’ve gotten the words right.

“There,” Grizz whispers. “That’s what I wanted to say.”

“Grizz, you idiot,” Sam whispers, signing along slowly. Grizz can’t stop smiling at him. “I love you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Lately I've been thinking a lot about (in no particular order): queer loneliness, fiction writing, and these two idiots. So, naturally ... this? I think I wrote fanfiction once like, maybe eight years ago, but this has been a nice way to put all those things together while also kicking writers' block in the ass.
> 
> Hope all you beautiful queers/lgbtq+ folks are having a good month, even if Pride month gives you weird feelings like me, and hope you enjoyed!


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